FOOD VENDORS CRY OUT: HIGH PRICES KILLING OUR BUSINESS, DON’T LET PEOPLE DIE OF HUNGER • As maiden edition of Alimosho Food Festival holds in Lagos
By Oki Samson, Trek Africa Newspaper
A gathering of food vendors, event planners, and other business owners in the event industry took place in Alimosho LGA, Lagos over last weekend. Tagged Alimosho Food Festival, this is the first ever edition.
During the event, various foods such as continental dishes, African dishes, finger foods, drinks, and so on were on display for the large audience.
Also, it provided a platform for investors in the food and event industry to interact directly with chefs, cooks, caterers, among others in the value chain.
The major challenge that most of them are having in their businesses is the skyrocketing prices of food. They told Trek Africa Newspaper that it is greatly limiting people from buying which is directly making their business to suffer.
Speaking with Trek Africa Newspaper at the event, the Creative Director, Alimosho Food Festival, Adekoya Abiodun Afeez said: ‘This is the first edition. There is no political affiliation to this event. We hope to have another one in November. With the feedback we have, we would do it again.’
‘We don’t know that we have many event planners and people in the food business here, Alimosho have the numbers. We are trying to testrun an app which will allow vendors to sell their products. The vendors registered online.’
One of the vendors, Omoluyi Esther aka Duchess said: ‘I joined this event majorly for visibility because I deal in any kind of food that you can think of. I also deal in event planning. My business is barely a year so I need to be out there.’
‘The prices of food increases everyday. You get something N200 today, you get it N500 tomorrow, it is annoying. And you can’t transfer it to customers or else they will say they won’t buy. The government should help keep the prices of things down.’
A marketing executive from Checkers custard, Mrs. Adekunle Olamide added: ‘The increase in price of petrol affects everything. The instability of the economy affects the price of food which eventually comes back to consumers.’
On the Alimosho Food Festival, Mrs. Adekunle said: ‘We are here to celebrate with the people, we want to make our customers happy and let them know what we are doing and also make those who are not aware to become aware, our customers are wide from parents to children. The festival is well organized. We will like to participate in the next event.’
A Nollywood star, Joseph Momoh present at the event shared: ‘This event is of great significance to Alimosho, mainlanders, islanders, and Africans at large. I came here to taste the food. It is a food festival. The kind of food you see here, you might need to order them specially online but an event like this gets them to your side. I am liking the environment, there are different foods on display. I am here to have fun and experience different African foods. This is what you need, something readily available for you at no stress.’
‘To the best of my knowledge, Nollywood actors get involved in grassroots activities but it will be likely places close to them. They don’t shy away from it despite that it is stressful because being on TV is different from being on the street.’
Appealing to the government, Momoh told Trek Africa Newspaper: ‘The government should help to subsidize to make food available and also control inflation and also make the dollar hike come down. We are doing our best as youths, government should also do theirs as well.’
